ANNIVERSARY50TH

SUPPLEMENT TO FOOD & BEVERAGE REPORTER JUNE 2017

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Geiger & Klotzbücher (Pty) Ltd is a family-owned business that set up shop in 1967 and has become one of Southern Africa’s leading suppliers of an exclusive range of food processing and packaging equipment and materials for perishable food products in the meat, poultry, cheese, fish, convenience food and ready meal industries.

And whilst its co-founder and Chairman, Lothar Josef Klotzbücher, passed away earlier this year, the business has been in the very capable hands of his two sons, Chris and Alex, for a number of years. At their Ottery, Cape Town headquarters, the brothers took Food & Beverage Reporter through the history of the business their father started 50 years ago.

Chris: Dad studied toolmaking in Germany and started at Bizerba, working his way through the ranks as a technician before coming to SA when local company Freddy Hirsch was awarded the Bizerba agency.

At that stage, most of the world was in the process of changing from the Imperial to the metric system and he spent 3 years working on installations which were complicated by this changeover. He spent 7 years with Freddy Hirsch as their workshop manager, meeting our mom as well as his future partner, Mr Geiger, during that time.

When the two of them decided to start their own business, they worked out of Mr Geiger’s garage in Tableview and their first real work was recalibrating, installing and servicing scales on fishing trawlers in the Cape Town and Saldanha harbours.

Chris: From those early servicing days, the two partners managed to get the agencies in South Africa for Maurer, who manufactures cooking, smoking & fermenting rooms, and then also for Super Vac, and they were in fact one of the first companies to bring vacuum packing machinery into South Africa in the 70’s.

They then made friends with the

family behind a spice milling business and decided to diversify into spice milling, setting up Deli Spices with a few other partners.

Alex: Dad was a complete workaholic and he enrolled Chris and I into the business from an early age. We spent many hours during our school holidayshere so we knew the business inside out before we were even teenagers.

Chris: I initially decided to study architecture but I soon discovered it wasn’t what I thought it

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50 years on ... G&K goes from strength to strength

The early days ... G&K sold and serviced scales around the Cape Town docks

SERVICE in stainless steel

As one of the leading companies in the international meat industry, Inject Star

convinces through an extensive assortment and represents a synonym for universal

applicability, outstanding quality and absolute reliability.

Thanks to long-lasting cooperations Inject Star guarantees an excellent service – independent

of place and time. The nationwide network ensures not only the absolute reliability on

site, but also the worldwide presence of professional competence.

We would like to congratulate our partner company

Geiger & Klotzbücher (Pty) Ltd. for its special 50th anniversary and

are looking forward to our continuing excellent cooperation in the future.

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G&K leadership @work & playG&K’s management team, from left, Chris Klotzbücher, CEO, Christian Schiess, Sales Manager, Paul Janse van Renburg, Factory Manager

and Alex Klotzbücher, Operations Director.

Chris Klotzbücher I have been with the company for 27 years now, having joined for what was going to be a short term stint at the end of 1991 after I’d completed 6 years of studying packaging and printing technology.

I was quickly totally absorbed and now as the Managing Director I am responsible for the administrative, sales and finance functions in the business. We’re at a point now where I want to start moving in some new directions as a business can never stand still. We are fortunate in the sense that as a family, my brother and I have common values, and we have team members who are able to give us inputs which balance ours, which of course tend to be emotionally invested.

When I’m not in the office I choose to spend quality time with my family, and I love surfing, wavesailing, skating and music.

Alex Klotzbücher

As Operations Director, I ensure that the company has the best processes and working environment in place. I virtually have a hand in every aspect of the business, including planning budgets, reviewing expenses, increasing profitability and growth.

I was born and grew up in a small republic called Hout Bay. After matriculating

in 1996 from Camps Bay High School I moved to Germany where I did two apprenticeships in Industrial Business Management and Flexographic Printing. I moved back to Cape Town in 2004 where I started at Geiger & Klotzbücher as a floor manager. In 2006 I became the Production Manager and from 2013 became the Operations Director.

In my spare time I enjoy tennis, Crossfit, sports cars, travelling and collecting fine wines.

Paul Janse van Rensburg

As Factory Manager, I ensure all processes and functions run reliably and efficiently, ultimately delivering an impressive product on time that guarantees customer satisfaction.

I grew up in the Boland & Koue-Bokkeveld and achieved my BSc Wood Science Degree in 2006. I was the GM at Cederberg Sawmill Citrusdal for two and a half years, laying a sound foundation to build my career in the manufacturing environment. My career at G&K started mid-2009.

In my spare time I enjoy mountain biking, diving, woodwork, trail running and keeping my hands busy. And I just love making food and chilling at home.

Christian Schiess

I was born and grew up in a quaint town in Switzerland. I then did a commercial apprenticeship with VC999 Packaging Systems which brought me into the vast vacuum packaging technology space. After that I had to do army service and did some other work until I landed at Tipper Tie clipping systems where I worked as a product manager in the marketing and sales division.

It was here, with international trade, where I started to love building relationships with customers or other people in the trade, trying to find product solutions and offers to whatever problem or need there was.

I then moved to South Africa as I was looking for something a little different and approached our then South African distributor, G&K, for a position in sales.

In late 2007 when I started here I was only 25 years old but already had a combined 8 years of experience within food processing and packaging technology, materials and consumables. Today I am the sales manager and look after a small team and the whole Southern African area.

In my free time I enjoy boxing, mountain biking, being outdoors as often as I can or just being amongst

people I love. I also have a big passion for ice hockey which I played back in Switzerland at a high level. I sorely miss this sport here!

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would be, so I then went off and studied food and packaging technology for 6 years. At that stage the business was still largely about having the agencies for various international equipment brands, such as Inject Star and Multivac. Dad also started building his own machines as there was lots of flux in the machine space at that time, with agencies coming and going and changing hands, and a growing 2nd hand market developing. He decided it was time to broaden the company’s base and take a leap of faith into the plastic packaging side of the game. Despite his partner’s reservation, they bought some land, built premises and headhunted someone from Versapak to run it. Dad bought an old printing press from who knows where and we imported all the packaging material out of Europe.

Alex: I remember that our earliest clients were Renown, Blue Ribbon, Enterprise and Rainbow – all meat and chicken producers. There was this massive demand for casings and at that stage our only competitor was Colpack and we really filled a nice gap as we

offered high quality material and we were willing to do small volumes. And Dad obviously was in an advantageous position here, given he could leverage his machinery clients now to get their packaging deals.

Chris: The shift into vac packing technology was an interesting time. Even though it was so obvious that vac packing extended

shelf life without the use of chemical additives, it was very much unknown territory for the local producers, and getting them to believe in it and invest in the equipment necessary was quite a process.

But we persevered, and from the time I joined in 1991 through to 2000, we grew exponentially, extending the vac packing and casings offer to include shrink bags and then introducing a thermoforming machine.

By 2001 we’d seen a quantum shift in the business, with machinery sales now only accounting for about 40% of the business and the packaging side dominating at 60%. By that stage, many of the

international equipment brands had started opening their own offices around the world, and had started running their own maintenance and service crews in the different country markets, so they were increasingly less reliant on agents.

By 2010 the split between machinery and packaging had shifted even further, with packaging accounting for 95% of our revenue. So we probably would not still be here if Dad

hadn’t initiated the packaging element!Alex: Actually one of the other

issues that made the machinery side

difficult was the fact that the quality was so good that the machines ran forever. We have a client who ran a machine for 87 years until they were forced by a national retailer to “upgrade” it to a stainless steel machine.

Chris: Mr Geiger decided to sell his shares to our family in about 2001 and my brother joined us post his education and apprenticeships in Germany in 2004. Since then we’ve successfully stuck to our “quality is everything” guns even when everyone else moved or is moving towards cutting quality for cost.

From 2006 we saw our growth hitting 25-30% annually despite the fact that some technologies like vac packing moved from being innovations to bread and butter lines.

We have had amazing relationships with our suppliers, and we’ve benefitted enormously from the R&D and IP that sits within their businesses, especially guys like Bemis & Viskase.

At the moment, it’s our puncture-resistant material which allows for vacuum packaging of bone-in-meat cuts that is our “golden child”.

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We’ve stuck to our Quality is Everything guns

Left: G&K co-founder Lother Klotzbücher, who passed away earlier this year.

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inspection systems, conveyer/converger systems, weighing, labelling,and product scanning.

VC999 was founded almost a half-century ago by Bernhard Inauen. The company remains family-owned and headquartered in Herisau, Switzerland.

CATO (ROSER GROUP)

Roser is a group of companies operating now across 5 continents that is dedicated to the agro-alimentary sector, in particular the meat industry.

Remaining true to the philosophy instilled by its founder, Jaime Roser, the company is committed to developing equipment of the highest standards in terms of hygienic properties and ergonomic design that are both easy to operate and easy to clean.

Assessment, design, production, customer service and post-sales service are all part of what the business considers priorities in terms of delivering on quality.

INJECT STAR + DOLESCHAL

The original Austrian company Inject Star was founded in 1967 and is one of the worldwide leaders in the meat processing industry, with 50 000 units in operation in more than 100 countries, covering both small, medium and industrial sized businesses.

Doleschal, acquired in 2012, is renowned for its comprehensive know-how relating to smoking units and now represents an important component of the company which produces massaging systems & tumblers, injectors, meat recovery units, thermal systems and air conditioning and maturing systems.

LORENZO BARROSO

This Spanish company produces over 500 different types of aluminium clips in several presentations, degrees of hardness and formats. The range of aluminium clips and loops provide the closing and hanging mechanism for virtually any type of casings, sausages, bags, nettings, sacks and other types of packaging.

Operating in the food and packaging industry since 1958, the company’s products are distributed in more than 100 countries.

ITALIAN PACK

Italian Pack, established in 1988, is a leading manufacturer of tray sealing, vacuum packing and lidding machinery from manual to fully automated machines. The company offers an extensive range of machines from a simple table top sealer to complete, fully-automatic, high-speed lines, including tray de-nesting, conveying, tray filling, film sealing and lidding. Applications include standard air closing, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) and skin packing.

MILIAN INKS

SA’s Millian Inks is a leading manufacturer, distributor and supplier of specialised inks, coatings and adhesives to the narrow web print industry with 100 years of experience in the print and packaging sectors. Headquartered in Cape Town with a regional office in Jozi, the business offers both imported and locally manufactured goods.

Millian Inks distinguishes itself through its understanding and supply of products suited to meeting the evolving European Legislation for Food Safety in packaging printing through their sales and support of both Cationic and Free Radical inks.

Another key differentiator is their locally-formulated and manufactured UV Flexo Free Radical MilliCure Inks and their water-based Aquamill range of inks.

Geiger & Klotzbücher has been collaborating with an array of quality suppliers, many of whom have histories going back even further than its own ,,,

BEMIS

Bemis has played an influential role in the packaging industry ever since its founding in 1858. Now the largest flexible packaging company in the Americas, Bemis serves customers worldwide with products that are found in virtually every aisle of the grocery store.

Wsconsin, USA-based Bemis is now celebrating its 150th year, having grown and changed incredibly since its humble beginnings when Judson Moss Bemis founded his cotton and burlap bag manufacturing business for millers along the Mississippi River to today’s

technologically advanced flexible packaging and pressure-sensitive solutions for the global market. With 59 facilities in 12 countries worldwide, Bemis is almost unmatched in size and scope.

VISKASE

This 90-year-old company was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1925 by Erwin O Freund, who invented the first synthetic sausage casing made from regenerated cellulose which revolutionized the meat processing industry, allowing for gains in productivity and efficiency in the manufacture of ready-to-eat meat products. Viskase has a global sales and distribution network that reaches virtually every country, with manufacturing and distribution facilities in North America, South America,

Asia and Europe, and employing over 2 000 people. As worldwide demand continues to grow, VISKASE is investing in the capacity to meet that demand. This includes investments in new facilities in Monterrey, Mexico, the Philippines and in Brazil and the presence of technical service groups around the world to provide customer support. And more recently resulted in the purchases of the very well-known casing manufacturers Walsroder Casings Group and Darmex Casing sp. z o.o.

ALLVAC GmbH

With foundations that go back to 1966, Allvac has produced PA/PE composite films for food packaging since 1992, specialising in high-grade film solutions for products such as meat and sausage, boiled ham, fish and seafood as well as cheese.

Customers are drawn from the food and pharmaceutical industry worldwide, finding particular value in the fact that the company has BRC certification and offers expert advice, a high degree of flexibility and short delivery times.

From development to extrusion and up to confection, the entire process chain takes place in-house so that the company can guarantee maximum flexibility and speed.

VC999

VC999 Packaging Systems is a global leader in the design and manufacturing of vacuum chamber machines, horizontal thermoforming (rollstock), form-fill-seal machines, tray sealers and skin packaging.

It also supplies ancillary items, packaging materials/supplies, and full line components from its sister brands XtraVac and XtraPlast, such as vertical & horizontal flow wrapping machine systems, packaging robotics, vision

Global partnerships with the industry’s leading players

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 50TH ANNIVERSARY

www.italianpack.com

a.hartrodt South Africa (Pty) Ltd

info.za@hartrodt.com

www.hartrodt.com

Congratulations on your

Anniversary

50 th

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It has allowed all meat packers, large or small, to move from a bag failure rate of 15% and above to one which is more like 0.5%, which is astronomical.

Alex: What has helped move things along is that the big supermarket chains have pretty much forced their suppliers to become HACCP compliant. We voluntarily adopted the BRC system, which is the British yardstick for food packaging and is today regarded as the widest accepted international standard for foods packaging. After extensive modernisation and implementing the necessary systems, our first and immediately successful audit took place in December 2013 and we are now proud of our AA grading.

Chris: Fortunately we have a depth of experience that our clients really value and this helps us to really gain

access to their businesses and play a meaningful consultative role, which means we’re able to assist them in the right direction.

Looking ahead, we’re in a good place. We have a strong business, we’ve survived a generational change, and we’re at a point where we have multiple options in front of us . We’re fortunate

enough to be able to choose where we want to go. So whilst our strongholds are still Namibia and the Western Cape, we want to build up our presence in other parts of the country. We also know that we need to introduce more depth to the management so that we continue to deliver what we’ve always been known for: our superior levels of customer service.

We also plan to invest further in our factory capabilities so that we improve both the quality of the work we produce and that we’re able to deal with the growth we know will result from the other actions we plan to take!

G&K’s HQ in Ottery, Cape Town

We’ve survived a generational change

CONGRATULATIONSON YOUR 50TH ANNIVERSARY

The companies allfo and allvac offer specialist know-how in each of their specific fields to provide intelligent film products manufactured on cutting-edge machines.

From development and extrusion right through to converting, the entire process chain takes place in-house.

thermoforming filmsAllvac has produced PA/PE composite films for food packaging since 1992, specialising in high-grade film solutions for products, such as meat and sausage, boiled ham, fish and seafood as well as cheese.

The added value of our vacuum films are:• Optimum, aesthetic product presentation• High degree of transparency• Excellent recovery properties that make your packaging look like a second skin• First-class skin sealing properties (full-surface sealing) no product fluids between top and bottom web• Very good machine runability for exceptional ease of processing• High barrier values

Special applications demand special solutions.Our high-barrier composites are available with antifog effect, in peelable quality and printed.

vacuum bagsOur side seal bags have proven to be ideal for sealing in freshness and aroma, for all food products, as well as for maturing and convenience food.• Excellent gas barrier for outstanding product and aroma protection• Tested quality – from raw material to the finished bag• Low air-penetration rates as a result of high tear resistance• Extensive range of sizes kept in stock• Excellent printability

allfo side seal bags are also an excellent choice for non-food applications, e.g. forpackaging pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, chemical and industrial products.

Do not accept any compromises when it comes to your products’ packaging.

For further information about allfo group products and services please visit us online at www.allfo.de and www.allvac.de

Providing expert advice and a comprehensive range of services, theallfogroup develops innovative barrier packaging for all applications in the food a pharmaceutical industry.

KEEP YOUR VACUUMKEEP YOUR VACUUM

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Geiger & Klotzbücher is now a diversified business that has 3 core offerings, which we examine below.

Packaging

With a strong focus on flexible packaging for perishable food products, Geiger & Klotzbücher only supplies highest quality packaging materials in form of vacuum-, shrink-, high-abuse bags, thermoforming films and casings - offering their clients the best possible oxygen and liquid barriers for maximum extension of shelf life and maximum protection of valuable food products.

The company distributes materials of top manufacturers such as Bemis, Viskase and Allfo/Allvac to name just a few.

G&K offers modern, in house, BRC/IoP certified printing and converting facilities which are geared to supporting their commitment to product quality-, safety-, hygiene- & process standards as well as being pro-active regarding packaging related economical & environmental issues, so that machine

down time is minimized as is any packaging or product waste.

Services related to the packaging aspect of the business include:• Guidance through the process of

conceptualizing to converting client’s packaging design ideas

• The provision of in-house design or through their network of suppliers who can assist and advise on existing designs or modulate a custom design required for the client’s specific product packaging

• Reliability in terms of the in house team of expert printers who are both qualified and experienced in flexo-

printing methods and plate-making for a multitude of packaging materials

• The ability to source a wide variety of cutting-edge raw materials to meet all your packaging needs

Machinery

G&K have been awarded an elite selection of packaging oriented machine representations for the Southern African markets, including the likes of Lorenzo

Barroso, Italian Pack, VC999 and Inject Star to name a few. These brands offer equipment that ranges from small processing- and packaging machines to industrial in-line processing & packaging lines and entire factory turn-key projects. This offer is backed up by the company’s well-equipped workshop, factory-trained service and maintenance engineers as well as spare parts management and logistics.Services related to the equipment aspect

of the business include:• Equipment consultation and

procurement assistance• After sales services such as machine

installation, training / consultation, supplying of spare parts, etc.

Consumables

This final element of the triangle is essentially about the supply of commodity consumables such Nojax® peelable cellulose casings, bone guard material as well as clips and loops. These consumables are always part of and used in conjunction with equipment or other packaging items supplied by G&K.

Nojax® casings are a specialized casing product and offers a very economical, more automated solution for small caliber cooked and smoked sausage production. Clips and loops are required to close and seal all types of tubular shaped packaging with manual, semi-automatic or

fully automatic clipping equipment. Bone Guard is a specifically

manufactured and designed wax paper to prevent bones and other sharp objects from piercing a normal vacuum/shrink bag during and after vacuuming.

A three-pronged approach

Christian Schiess helps a client get up to speed with a new vacuum packing installation.

Customers are kingCarolin Raith of Raith Gourmet on our installation of an Inject Star intensive ham massaging system (pictured above):

“We have partnered with G&K on many equipment projects, and they always form part of our scope when looking for new equipment.

“The installation of this high-intensity massaging unit has meant a leap forward in productivity for us without sacrificing the high quality standards of our product. In fact, we believe we have been able to increase our product quality through this new equipment and technology.

“The technical support from G&K has always been on point and so it was an easy choice for us in the end.”

Sparta Foods, which has implemented G&K’s puncture-proof shrink vac bags (left), believes the bags ticked all boxes during their tests and thereafter in terms of functionality, availability, price etc. Vacuum packaging in these bags has meant a reduced return and waste rate, ultimately leading to reduced cost for the end-consumer.

Khalid Palekar of Palmo Foods in the Cape on G&K supplying an ever-changing range of polony casings (below) to them for years and years: “G&K’s service and quality has played a major role in the shaping of Palmo Foods.”

to providing solutions